Imagine yourself stuck in a case where you are facing 30+ years for putting up documents online, then the organization saying "Haha! Nevermind, we were going to put everything out in public domain anyway!" (typical PR?) and still be trapped in it.

Imagine yourself stuck in a case where you are facing 30+ years for...

Lots of people have been faced with worse time than this and don't kill themselves; some even face the death penalty. Most people who try and succeed in committing suicide have pretty much in some form or other harbored daemons their entire life. It would not surprise me that he has often throughout his life pondered suicide and maybe even tried and failed.

Can there be a person who reaches adulthood and has only minor issues?

No. Not unless they live in a society that has no issues.

In a society with rampant racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, unequally applied justice, massive wealth disparity, and which exalts militarism, nobody grows up without the need for some deep grappling with indoctrinated toxic values, even if they have largely escaped their effects.

In such a society it is perfectly possible to harbor prejudices resulting from that indoctrination without knowing it - even if you are aware of the larger implications and are fighting against them.

As others have rightly pointed out "the flame that burns brightest also burns the quickest" and when they are writing specs at 14 years old you can expect a burn out. Some go nuts, some end up junkies, but when you are THAT driven THAT young you can pretty much count on a major flameout, just a shame his flameout was fatal.

As for copyrights, i have an ironclad argument that pretty much obliterates any pro copyright trolls and I think the more people point this out to the average folks the quicker we can get this scam taken out...Do you realize that many of Walt Disney's FIRST works, made when cars were started with a crank, airplanes were made out of cloth, and antibiotics were but a dream are STILL under copyright? The man has been dead for longer than most of us have been alive and they will STAY under copyright until most of us are dead, now how does that in ANY way shape or form promote sciences and the arts as the founding fathers intended?

All our insane copyrights and patents are doing is making sure that Asia becomes the next superpower as you won't be able to get anything done here without getting screwed by all the tollbooths. Most of the games I grew up with are now in copyright limbo, so many of the 80s companies went under yet you can't do anything with the games because the copyrights, that won't expire for over a century, are just hanging there like a sword of Damocles over them, and any cool idea you can possibly think of will have a dozen bullshit vague patents that will break you if you aren't a megacorp.

It inspires other people to be creative, build their own teams of people to produce their own films and entertainment franchises. Just like so many other successful people do, every day, right now. Because, of course, you (and they) would also benefit from the same protections for your work - which you can waive any time you want if you think the rest of the world should have your work to play with as they see fit.

[Q]. ..how does that in ANY way shape or form promote sciences and the arts [?]

[A] It inspires other people to be creative,. . .

Many of the classic works now still under extended copyright were created when the term used to be much shorter (e.g. 28 years renewable on fee for another 28), and they just got a longer ride at the expense of all of us when the proprietary interests (not usually the authors) procured changes in the law to extend the terms and increase the range of restricted acts & crimes. The current range of criminalized activities to do with copyright has been _heavily_ extended since those days. So, no, the current penal legislation was _not_ needed to inspire or incentivize those works.

. ..protections for your work - which you can waive any time you want. . .

I had the interesting experience of trying to access online a paper that I actually wrote, and found myself invited to pay a copyright fee to access it. (No, I didn't assign the copyright to anybody.)

So I wonder how, exactly, could I or any other author in a similar position 'waive the protections' for our work? -- it turns out we don't even control them, as it is.

To be fair, it's not really a stroke of luck or the sleazy "networking" you referred to. He was doing real networking (without sleaze-quotes). When everybody else was either a senior in high school, playing video games and riding easy after being accepted to college, or a college freshman finding their path and drinking a lot, this guy was out at a conference meeting people and talking about the coding he had been doing for years.

A lot of college kids have never been to a conference and have never talked with a prospective employer without being at a recruiting fair where everybody is trying to get a job. What they should have been doing was having lunch with people who work in the types of jobs they might want--not lunch to ask them for a job or hand them a resume, lunch to talk to them and find out if the job sounds like a good fit. They should be meeting people at conferences where people are there to talk about ideas and skills (not recruiting events where everybody just jabs at the recruiters with their resumes). All that separates this guy from his minimum wage friends, is that he actually did *something* where as they did nothing.

I should note, that I was one of those people...I went to recruiting events on campus, had some internships that came from similar recruiting events, and had full-time interviews from people who did on campus recruiting. None of that worked well--what worked was when I finally realized that talking with people (without explicitly trying to get a job...just trying to find out more info) was leagues ahead.

I once faced 16 years' imprisonment for some trumped-up charges thatmight have stuck if I had gone to trial. So like most other people who getin trouble in the United States on the federal level, I copped a plea with theagreement that my sentence would be limited to far less prison time.

In the end I served 30 months in federal prison. It was easy time, and I wasin a medium security facility. I cannot say it was pleasant, but it was not evenclose to being a scenario in which I could have been the victim of homosexual rapeor any of the other awful things idiots on Slashdot speculate about when they imagineprison. The truth is that I had a lot of time to relax, I read many excellent books, andI ate quite well ( food in fed prisons is actually pretty damned good, it is the food instate prisons which sucks ).

So, what if I had responded to the prosecutor's BULLSHIT attempts to scare meand killed myself ? I'd be dead. Instead, today I am going to enjoy a nice motorcycleride and give my cat a lot of love, and eat a wonderful meal later on. Life has upsand downs, and there WILL be dark days for all of us, sooner or later. If you leta dark day push you into committing suicide, you will have failed yourself.

Instead of being dead, I can honestly say that prison was a growth experiencefor me and that I am today happier than I have ever been.

NEVER EVER GIVE UP, no matter what some bastard is doing to you.

If my story is not powerful enough for you, look up the story of Primo Levi.That story will be enough to leave a permanent imprint on your brain, Iassure you.

I cannot say it was pleasant, but it was not even close to being a scenario in which I could have been the victim of homosexual rape or any of the other awful things idiots on Slashdot speculate about when they imagine prison.

I'm glad you got lucky, but it's hardly mere "speculation": the prevalence of rape in U.S. prisons, by both guards and other inmates, is well documented [hrw.org].

Been there too. Faced 1024 years. Copped a plea for 4 and the judge made it 6. All fed camper time. I lived through it and might just be better for it. Served time with Boesky and Milken (not charges related to them, I was a phracker.)

Very said.
I met him once at an ArsDigita event when he was around 14. I was surprised to find that the posts I had been reading came from someone so young. He was a very smart guy and he made a lot of waves. I am sad to see him go.

He very clearly struggled with depression for a long time. After he got fired from Wired, he made a blog post [aaronsw.com] about someone committing suicide. He changed the person's name to "Alex" later, but it said Aaron when he wrote it. His friends took this to be a suicide note and called the cops to intervene. Afterwards, he denied [reddit.com] that it was a suicide note, but admitted he wasn't in a good state of mind at the time.

He also posted an online 'will' of sorts [aaronsw.com] back in 2002 when he was only 16. For a 16 year old kid to be making such concrete plans in case of his death speaks to his own expectations about his life.

As a... well, I'm never sure if I should use the term "suicide survivor" or "failed suicider"... anyway, as one of those, allow me to respond to your polite request for having some shame with an equally polite "no".

Just because you don't like sick jokes about certain subjects, doesn't mean the rest of us don't.

To some of us, humour is a stress reliever and coping mechanism - telling us that we shouldn't use it, trying to shame and ostracise us for using it, is in fact likely to make us more inclined to follow in Aaron Swartz' footsteps.

There are few things as life affirming as laughter, and some of us have a really hard time finding those laughs in everyday situations.

Laughter is one of the very few parts of the universal human vocabulary, it is delightfully infectious and as far as I know the only emotion that is basically a one way street. I.e. once you start giggling and laughing, it is almost impossible to stop, whereas someone really sad or depressed will almost always start to laugh when faced with others laughing.

I do agree with you though, that the jokers in here should take a long hard look at themselves, but for very different reasons. I think anyone who can make light of a sad situation makes life more bearable, and for people like me, that is a life saver.

You post basically confuses the fuck out of anyone who wants to know how they *should* be responding to news of a suicide. Instinctively they feel they shouldn't make any jokes out of respect, and yet you basically say "bring it on" since humour is a copying method (which may very well be true). But you try that in the flesh with real people in front of you, and it's very likely few will see the funny side, and you'll be ostracised and treated as an uncaring bastard.

Indeed, suicidal people have some of the most hilarious death humor of anyone.

In fact, that's one simple way to determine if someone is seriously suicidal, or just doing it for the attention. Make a joke about death and suicide, and if they don't laugh, they're probably just doing it for the attention.

In fact, that's one simple way to determine if someone is seriously suicidal, or just doing it for the attention. Make a joke about death and suicide, and if they don't laugh, they're probably just doing it for the attention.

if I were struggling with suicidal tendencies, I think I would definitely try to fight against them with my reason instead of my feelings

Problem is, it's your feelings that tend to cause you to choose suicide, not your reason.

Unless you find yourself in a situation where you belly flop onto a grenade or see a dozen people around you die (which is on the whole quite a rare opportunity) then suicide is likely to be a last resort because you don't feel able to do anything else.

That's not a reasonable position. Anybody else can step back and suggest a more interesting and constructive course of action. Even if it does involve buying an automatic

Damn straight. I was born a decade before Swartz, but he did far more with his life than I have with mine. He had passion and used it for both technological and political ends. I have yet to hear of anything he did which didn't make me wish I was more like him. The charges against him were for acts that I 100% support and believe the laws and punishments against what he did are profoundly unjust (like many laws we hear about these days).

I'm going to put this picture [amazonaws.com] up on my wall to remind me daily about

He purportely stole some information created with public money, but granted to privated a privated party, with the objective of returning it to the public. And was in line to get 35 years of prision for that. How much can you get if you murder someone in the US, by the way?

When he killed himself, he had still not yet been prosecuted. I seem to be missing the part where the "(in)justice system" did something they shouldn't have been doing?

The (in)justice system did still not prosecute him, years after he was marked as a felon and had his life destroyed. That's what it shouldn't have been doing. If you intend to destroy the life of somebody while he awaits judment, that judgment must be quick.

Don't forget that he caused MIT to be denied access to JSTOR for several days while he repeatedly attempted to get around the blocks setup by MIT admins. Thousands of scholars rely on that access every day. Plus all of the heartburn he caused the admins at JSTOR. Real people had their lives interrupted by his little stunt. Had he been smarter he would have done it undetectably.

I'm sorry, but what he did was astoundingly foolish and stupid. Especially for someone who was an "ethics scholar" or whatever

If Aaron Swartz had not committed suicide, his case would still look like oppressive overreaction by proprietary interests and by the justice system which too often seems to act as if it were their private proxy.

This question of disproportion survives whatever may be said technically about the legalities and moralities of unauthorized downloading of the information he handled or mishandled. In its parts that was essentially long-published and public. Any prison term at all, let alone up to 35 years, looks to me totally disproportionate to the seriousness of what was done with this kind of material. It also compares unfairly to the lenient treatment or official conniving with those who do things that are at least equally serious or much more so. For example it deserves to be compared with false claims (made knowingly or recklessly) to copyright in cases where there is none -- that is such an everyday occurrence that no-one seems to give it a second look, but those who perpetrate such frauds generally get off scot-free. It also deserves to be compared with the corrupt or fraudulent procurement of legislation to remove parts of the public domain and reduce them to private ownership, arguably much more serious, and when was anybody last pursued for that kind of misdemeanor?

It may be that Swartz was tipped over the edge into suicide by a feeling that the only other course for him would be a lifetime turning on the spit as a legal victim. If so, he may have been right, there may not have been any third option. And if so, there is more than one tragedy there: not only his death, but also the continuing injustice that more serious offenders are routinely condoned.

At the time, homosexual relationships were illegal, classified as a sex act on par with raping dogs or children, and carried harsh penalties which Turring endured.

There was a sharp disconnect between what is ethically sound, and what is legally necessitated.

Likewise here: the voting public paid to have that research conducted, were being double dipped, (actually more than that..) and denied access unless they were themselves subsidised scholars of some sort. A morally offensive situation is being maintained (people are compelled through threat of violence and or incarceration to hand money to the government who then gives that money to private firms and researchers, presumably for the public's benefit, but are then strictly denied access to the results of that research which they financed.) For the benefit of rentseekers (JSTOR, Eslevier, and all those other publishing house whores.), at the detriment of public knowledge and education. (Really, far larger databases of information are maintained by community organized efforts than these clowns maintain, and those community orgs provide their services for free. The main reasons why these for prfit orgs can't do that, is because they aren't in it for science or knowedge, but instead are only in it for money, which quite bluntly, they are not entitled to.)

This man sought to move that data out of the rentseeker's filing cabinets, and into the public's waiting hands, since the public has already paid for that information through funding the godamn research to begin with. (Imagine: megacorp funds a lab to answer some scientific question: the lab then double dips on printed copies (per copy) of results, and asserts ownership of the works. Does this really happen to big corps? Fuck no it doesn't. "Works for hire", and all that. But it does to normal people and universities, because magically, once taxpayer money goes through the ravenous maw of the government debt machine, it isn't a work for hire!)

The renteekers go all pedant on him, and ruin his life sufficently that he is finally motivated enough to actually end his own life to get away from his problems.

If he committed suicide because the government/JSTOR ruined his life then over what was claimed to be "trumped up charges" then this is a story that needs some action. But if this was because his girlfriend dumped him or some other personal reason, then this will fade into the background wand wont have the same impact.

Still it's sad to see that one of our esteemed contributes to society has been lost.

I read a bit of the indictment [archive.org] and I find it hard to believe the charges are 'trumped up' because they are so easy to disprove.

Did he or did he not buy the laptop?

Did he or did he not access an MIT wiring closet?

Did he or did he not program the above purchased laptop to retrieve a massive number of documents in a manner inconsistent with their terms of use?

Personally I think his passion for his political/legal positions drove him to commit crimes, crimes for which the penalty was so great it may have driven him to suicide, but as the previous poster mentioned - we don't know why he did it. (was there a note?)

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among his age group (after accidental death), there are likely causes outside his achievements that drove him to take his own life, like the other 5-6,000 suicide victims in his age group each year.

The indictment is the legal document that says what he was charged with, no more, no less. I don't understand why you would have an issue with a review of the actual charges against him, since many here (and elsewhere) are trying to portray this as a Turing-like harassment by the government (which it is not).

He (allegedly) installed his own computer into an MIT wiring closet, took repeated steps to overcome MIT's efforts to stop him, hid from security cameras, and violated the terms of use for accessing the computer system. Since you prefer journalisim, take a look at this Wired article [wired.com] - it details the charges against him.

sad to see a statistic so tragic. among the age group 25-34, suicide is the second highest cause of death (cdc, 2010 [ http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/10LCID_All_Deaths_By_Age_Group_2010-a.pdf [cdc.gov] ]). All i can say is this is a tragedy in the specific, and its a tragedy in the general. Build communities where you can, and if you stand up for your beliefs try and make bonds that will help you through troubled times when the shit hits the fan as a result. our best and brightest should be here to fix the problems left behind by the poor choices of others, because if the best and brightest arent...who is going to? please stand by activists if you agree with them, and if you have suicidal thoughts (related to, or unrelated to activism), seek better bonds with others or medical help if necessary

No, it should be the top thing. It doesn't say that a lot of people die. Say there is only 3 deaths in that age group. If two are suicide then suicide would be the top cause of death. The further suicide is down the list then that means people in that age group are probably having more health problems. Where as if the top cause is something they choose then that means that age group is relatively safe and only die when they choose to end it.

some people have issues far beyond what one might call "choice" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii [wikipedia.org] or other disorders). studies recently link the mentioned disorder to suicide attempts (http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/12.13.PR0.107.5.424). you get to call it stupidity. but we dont have to agree with you when data shows otherwise. brain disorders (caused by external or genetic, etc) can influence how one behaves. tumors in certain brain regions can significantly reduce the self pres

Maybe so - but no matter how magnificent the peaks we rise to (of our intelligence specifically) - we can always fall. And no-one can ever stay at those heights for all contexts.

The default state of all matter is unintelligent - so that we achieve any at all at any time is marvellous. And there's quite a strong correlation between personal "intelligence" and suicide. The extra mental flexibility comes with attendant weakness - otherwise we'd long ago have continued to evolve towards higher and higher intell

Uh, I have papers on JSTOR. I've never been paid a dime for any of them. That's the thing about being an academic, you don't get paid for most of your publications (books and the very occasional book chapter being the exception....altho' my last book has done quite well for a book in my field, and at the 25cents a copy I get in royalties I can't say I'm getting wealthy...actually it hasn't paid for my out-of-pocket costs for producing it yet). Nope, I doubt there's double-digit livelihoods affected by relea

The world rewarded Aaron for his talent, and punished him for his genius. He would not have committed suicide but for, in a very legal sense, the persecution that came from doing the right thing. Journals pay nothing for their content, nothing for peer reviewers, and get paid for preventing people from gaining knowledge that other people, who were paid for by public money, accumulated for the public good.

Rents kill, and Aaron was one of the victims. All of us are the losers, except for the people with the corrupt rent stream.

And I would not be one bit surprised, if it turns out to be murder for lack of evidence in trial.

I know of similar stuff that happened to colleagues of close relatives, who were willing to give away government secrets. (And government secrets are secret *exactly* because you would not like that which is secret.)Shot in the head by snipers from buildings... at the moment they left the airport of the 3rd world country they fled to, and nobody giving a shit about it. After threatening his whole family.Yes, the great United States of America's CIA does stuff like that.

The whole system is broken, and this is just another symptom in a sea of them. The entire system has been co-opted and subverted to protect the monetary interests of the few. Whenever anyone steps up to threaten those interests, the DoJ and various other law enforcement entities step in to wreak havoc on those who dare to step out of line.

Anyone who has been in the computer underground, or who has had a single thought of wanting freedom or a life free from a government that grows more and more oppressive with each new law that they pass, completely understands this. The system is not setup to do the best for the most. It is setup to protect the few from the many.

Computer security is the perfect example. Rather than invest the money in education and technical training to go out and fix the flaws, the system decides to divert that money into lawyers and laws. A murderer is a threat to a single person. A hacker on the other hand can bring down the entire system, and "must be punished appropriately, so that others who might consider doing the same are given cause to think twice and decide against doing so". Unfortunately Aaron learned that the hard way. He probably thought that what he was doing was good, and right. And it probably was. Information that was paid for by tax dollars should not be locked up behind pay walls. But that is not the way the system works. The system maintains order with punishment and fear. It crushes lives by placing insane debt burdens upon those who stray from the rules, no matter how inane or obtuse those rules might be. For those too poor to be fined, there are prisons.

Aaron Swartz gets chalked up in the column of bright minds crushed by the system. The system does not want visionaries. It does not want bright minds who can conceive of better ways to live. It wants sheep, who will consume and die to protect their way of life. It wants a population that fears the rest of the world, because it sustains policies that anger the rest of the world... that steal from that world, to maintain the system. The system that sacrifices the many, for the benefit of the few.

I wonder how differently this tragic situation might have turned out if Jury Nullification were a part of the popular discourse. If Aaron had known that there would be people in front of the court during his trial, urging the jury to do the right thing and aquit him. That is where change really has to start. The system only continues to work because people who should know better, do not and they continue to convict. It only requires 2 people to change the system... 1 to challenge the law, and 1 to refuse to convict.

According to that definition, you are more free in a totalitarian dictatorship than in a democracy: In the totalitarian dictatorship you are free from the need to make decisions and you are free from having to form your own opinion.

I would say the definition of 'freedom' was relative to your mental disposition at the time.

In a totalitarian dictatorship you are not free from the need to make decisions - you are forbidden. There is a big difference, society forbids suicide and maybe society should have seen the signs that this might happen. But as much as society is free from blame for doing nothing to prevent this person taking his life. Aaron had the right to take his own.

He chose to take his own life. It was his decision. I don't agree with it, and I don't endorse it as a reasonable choice, but it was his decision.

There is an endless supply of "we want everything to be free and open! don't lock us in! what if I want to ABC? who's to say I can't XYZ?" Are we not hypocrites to say he cannot be free with his own life?

The world lost something of value with his passing. It was his choice to deprive the world of what he gave it. It is sad, and it is hard, but it is done.

It's possible he was depressed enough that he didn't make a choice, in which case the discussion is moot, so I'll assume he was culpable or at least largely culpable.

He chose to take his own life. It was his decision. I don't agree with it, and I don't endorse it as a reasonable choice, but it was his decision.

You lack the vocabulary to even describe this.

It was immoral and wrong for him to commit suicide. It's immoral simply because human life is not an expendable asset that you can manufacture or dispose of at will, and that includes yours. There are quite a few nations on this planet right now where the authorities believe they can, and they are a

So due to some "rules" declared as societal law (and thus differ depending on what society you're living in) your life isn't yours? Whose is it then? You declare in your same argument that it isn't someone else's or the government's so are you saying it is nobody's?

You assume death represents zero freedom, which is incorrect. Death doesn't represent zero freedom, it represents am empty collection of freedoms. It's not zero, it's not one, it's not infinite, it's nothing.

I know nothing about the lawsuit or the whole scientific paper stuff, but it's a shame that such a bright mind is lost to the world now. All we can do now, and all I'll do is wish his family and friends all the best in the coming difficult time.

Although his death is regrettable, everyone must still be prepared to face the consequences of their actions. The journals that published the articles he downloaded depend on subscription money to operate. People working for the publishers have families to feed, etc.. What he did was to damage their freedom to make a living under existing copyright law, which creates incentives for the journals to vet and publish the articles in the first place. I would argue that what Swartz did was to strike a blow against one of the pillars of science - independent peer review.

Unless you can invent a way for everything to be free (as in beer), which is another way of saying you think things should appear out of thin air, Swartz's actions amount to reducing the collection of freedoms available of everyone in the entire scientific journal ecosystem.

Hence we are more free under the current copyright system than we would be if people had no way of earning a living under current copyright law.

Unless you can invent a way for everything to be free (as in beer), which is another way of saying you think things should appear out of thin air, Swartz's actions amount to reducing the collection of freedoms available of everyone in the entire scientific journal ecosystem.

We have many intellectual works that predate copyright, as probably already know. And you can't conflate ideas with physical objects because there is no shortage of "idea copies": they don't disappear from my mind when you make a copy, so yes, they basically appear out of thin air. Even the originals often do because they appear when you are working on something else.

Hence we are more free under the current copyright system than we would be if people had no way of earning a living under current copyright law.

Non sequitur, sorry. The current copyright system restricts the freedom of the majority for no proven reason in order to provide monetary gain to a minority, and authors are not part of that minority in most cases either. So we have a system that doesn't benefit the general public and benefits very few of the producers. That looks like a net loss of freedom to me.

The discussion doesn't make sense after the fact. The deed is done. And we should have helped him choose otherwise.

However, most ethical frameworks regards the choice to end your own freedom as an unfree choice. Kant goes as far as saying that it is immoral; it is an attack on his humanity and ours as well (thus, we should not kill ourselves with regards to others, like others have a moral responsibility to help us not commit suicide).

yes, but there are other ways to relieve pain. plus, the pain is temporary. of course, it can feel endless, but that doesn't mean it is endless

i used to suffer from excruciating back pain. it lasted a long time, months. i completely understand the feeling a hopeless state of permanent pain. except: i don't have back pain anymore. i could have killed myself. but that means i would not be here typing these words, and enjoying a pain free life

if i had killed myself, i would have permanently destroyed the freedom i have now. suicide is a freedom destroying choice. opposing the choice of suicide, even externally from the individual, is a freedom preserving act

Reddit serves a purpose, it keeps a lot of imps & trolls off of slashdot, i dont use reddit either because i dont like the content but it serves a purpose (it provides a place imps & trolls to vent)

Hate to tell ya, but 99.9% of the articles on/. have already been posted on Reddit, or other aggregation sites, before it gets here.

That's the point GP was making. The other sites winnow the chaff. By the time the stories get here, few reddit readers (or other, more popular sites' readers) will deign to post on/., because the stories will seem old and chewed up to them. To us, they're semi-fresh and we get to discuss them with some intelligent geeks who are not too unlike ourselves, with only the occasional troll (and at least they're often attempts to be humorous instead of genuine trolling).
I don't know about everyone else, but I

Default reddit is terrible, but there are plenty of subreddits that have far higher quality than Slashdot. This place has been a fucking cesspool for years and nobody of note even posts logged in anymore.

Can you recommend some good "subreddits"? I keep finding the same junk that is on the front page.

The general reckoning over there seems to be that someone's been intentionally removing it from the front page for some weird reason. There have been a whole bunch of posts that have been highly upvoted, most of them just got pulled.